


and i was catching my breath

by Maerissa



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fluff, Ice Skating, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:00:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28207212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maerissa/pseuds/Maerissa
Summary: Dimitri and Felix go for an early-morning ice skating trip and fallfor each other.(Written for the 2020 Dimilix Holiday Exchange!)
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Felix Hugo Fraldarius
Comments: 2
Kudos: 22
Collections: 2020 Dimilix Exchange





	and i was catching my breath

**Author's Note:**

> this piece was written for [@rozovys](https://twitter.com/rozovys) as part of the 2020 dimilix holiday exchange! your prompts warmed my heart and i had a lot of fun trying to combine some of them into this soft college-y skating fluff. i hope you enjoy ⛸️

Dimitri stared down in wonder at Felix’s flushed, breathless face. Felt his raised heartbeat pulse, even through the thick coat separating Dimitri’s hand from Felix’s back. This... was certainly not the kind of skating trip he had been expecting.

* * *

The first morning of mid-term winter break had started much like any other. Dimitri had woken up early - inasmuch as deciding to quit his usual attempts at restless half-sleep could be called "waking up" - and slipped out from underneath the covers, shivering as the cold December air hit his legs. He checked the clock on his bedside table - just before 5:30, as always - and glanced over at Felix's bed on the other side of the room. _Still sound asleep_ , he smiled to himself. Catching himself dwelling on that glance at his roommate for a couple of seconds too long, he quickly turned on his heels and started making his way over to the kettle, suddenly a bit less bothered by the cold. 

Hands moving steadily even in the dim before-dawn light, Dimitri filled the kettle with water from their blue glass pitcher and switched it on. The small electric kettle in their room had been a birthday present from Ingrid, probably out of an understandable desire to stop being woken up before dawn every morning by Dimitri sneaking into the shared kitchen. While she and Sylvain weren’t exactly chronic late sleepers, Dimitri and Felix’s morning habits made even her usual 8am routine seem like a sleep-in. Ingrid’s motivations aside, Dimitri had found himself getting near-daily use of her gift. 

He carefully measured out a full teaspoon each of the same teas as always, and poured them into infusers. Whole chamomile blossoms for himself, and fragrant Almyran pine needles for Felix. As the steady boiling noises started getting louder until the kettle turned itself off with a click, Dimitri noticed a soft groan from behind him. 

“Ah, good morning, Felix.”

Getting to wake Felix up with something softer than the blaring of his phone alarm was another huge perk of the in-room kettle.

“...morning.”

Dimitri poured hot water into their respective mugs and carried them over to Felix’s bed.

“...thanks,” Felix mumbled with a yawn, rubbing his eyes as he stretched over to grab his mug.

Dimitri sat down at the foot of Felix’s bed and took a deep breath, inhaling the chamomile steam. As uncomfortably early as this might have been for anyone else, he wouldn’t change anything about their morning routine together for the world. Not the “good morning”s, exchanged when Felix was at his least prickly, not the sleepy teatime, and certainly not their morning spars. Not that they were the most productive or intense fencing practices they had, by any means – morning sluggishness tended to give rise to more than a few slip-ups from both of them – but getting to spend that hour every morning going head-to-head with Felix was worth more than anything to Dimitri. It was even worth, he reluctantly admitted to himself, coming back home exhausted and sweaty to a grinning Sylvain, cheerfully making wild assumptions about their “steamy morning rendezvous”.

“About sparring today.”

Felix’s voice cut through Dimitri’s stray thoughts, and he turned his head.

“Ah, hm?”

“I’ve been getting in easy hits as soon as I catch you off guard. You really need to work on your balance.”

This candid, almost rude remark only made Dimitri’s smile broaden. He knew that Felix was always looking out for him during practice, of course, but the detailed reminders always made him feel particularly cared for. Felix, unbothered by Dimitri’s soft reaction, continued.

“When was the last time you went ice skating?”

* * *

“Ah, let me help with that! Mercedes has taught me some new knots.”

Felix grimaced at Dimitri’s painfully genuine request, but stretched his legs out so Dimitri could lace up his skates for him nonetheless.

“Can’t believe the lake is already frozen over,” he mused to himself as Dimitri got to work. For efficiency’s sake, he would’ve preferred to just head to the campus ice rink, but once he’d spotted the soft dawn light reflecting in twinkling spots against the clear layer of ice covering the lake, he was certain that Dimitri would object to skating anywhere else.

“There we are!” Dimitri announced, sounding slightly too proud of this incredibly minor accomplishment. To his credit, the lacing did look surprisingly neat, Felix thought, at least for hands as coarse as Dimitri’s.

“Alright,” Felix replied, “do yours and then I’ll help you onto the ice.”

Dimitri nodded, pulled himself up next to Felix on the log bench lining the lake’s edge, and quickly but neatly laced up his own skates. Just as he finished, Felix carefully got up on the blades of his skates, stepped onto the ice and stretched out a gloved hand to Dimitri.

“Ready?”

“As long as you stay close,” Dimitri responded and grabbed his hand. The earnestness of that remark, saccharine in a way that only he could manage, nearly made Felix want to pull his hand right back out of Dimitri’s. Instead, he pulled him onto the ice with slightly too much force, and Dimitri gripped Felix’s hand even tighter as he tried to steady himself.

“Steady,” Felix said sharply, turning his face away slightly on the off chance his flustering at Dimitri’s grip was visible. 

“This might… take some getting used to.” Dimitri had managed to regain his footing completely, but his grip on Felix’s hand didn’t loosen even slightly.

“...Just follow my lead,” Felix replied and started slowly skating with Dimitri in tow, happy to have a solid reason not to have to face him for a while. If worst came to worst, he figured, he could just blame his flush on the cold.

After a minute of slow, steady, unusually stagnant skating, Felix dared to look back at Dimitri to find him gliding along with Felix, barely lifting his feet.

“You’re not going to get anywhere without me like that,” he sighed. “Copy my feet. Push off with your right foot, then set it down. Push off with your left, set it down.”

Felix slowed down and reached a second hand back to Dimitri as he tried to figure the steps out, then started speeding up again once Dimitri seemed to get the hang of it.

“I think I’ve got it,” Dimitri exclaimed after another few meters of skating at a moderate pace. Even so, he kept Felix’s hands locked in a firm squeeze.

“Let go, then.” Preempting any protests from Dimitri, Felix continued. “This is for your own balance, or you won’t learn anything. I’ve got your back.”

Seemingly comforted by that sentiment, Dimitri loosened his grip and let go of Felix’s hands, then immediately stretched his arms out to stay balanced. 

“Left foot. Right foot. Good.”

Dimitri kept skating to the pace of Felix’s words, slowly lowering his arms and picking up some speed. Felix couldn't help a slight smile at Dimitri passing him for the first time. 

“This is easier than I reca– _ah_ –”

Swiveling around to beam at Felix proved to be too ambitious of a balancing act for Dimitri, who lost his footing as quickly as he gained it and started falling forwards. Felix’s hand instinctively shot out to grab Dimitri’s just as hard as before, giving him just enough leverage to rebalance himself.

“Are you okay? You can’t do quick turns like that,” Felix admonished Dimitri as soon as he’d made sure he was properly steady again. This time, it was Felix keeping their hands firmly pressed together as they continued skating side by side. 

“If you need to turn quickly,” Felix continued, “you have to slow down and lead with your–”

The most inconvenient thing about skating on “real” ice, Felix quickly remembered, was the presence of pesky surface cracks and bumps which, if not paid proper attention to, could cause your skates to stick and leave you in a freefall–

“Felix!”

His forward fall was interrupted by a forceful tug on his arm, and a firm hand supporting his back as his balance overadjusted and he tipped over backwards.

There was absolutely no chance that he could hide his blush anymore, not being held up only by Dimitri’s arms with Dimitri’s face inches from his own. All he could do was try to catch his breath, look into Dimitri’s eyes, and see nothing but flashes of the countless times Dimitri had made him fluster like this in their single year as roommates. He felt his own heartbeat flutter out of control as every early-morning cup of tea and every sparring staredown took on new, vivid colours in his mind.

“Are you… is everything alright, Felix?” Dimitri’s face was at least as flushed as Felix’s, his gaze just as intense, and Felix had to look away completely to manage to get even a single word out.

“...Pull me back up… Dimitri.”

Wordlessly, Dimitri did as he was asked, and after a few moments to compose himself Felix’s feet slowly started getting back into the skating rhythm again. Dimitri followed his rhythm, just a stroke or two behind. As they built back up to a steady pace, they both caught themselves – and each other – awkwardly glancing down at their still-tightly-held hands. This time, however, neither of them had any intention of letting go.

* * *

“Oh, back from your early-morning one-on-one, huh?” Sylvain quipped, flashing a half-awake grin at Dimitri and Felix as they walked into the dorm’s shared space. The way both of them seemed to refuse to look directly at either him or each other clued Sylvain into something being up for real this time, though, and his eyes quickly widened once he noticed their held hands.

“Wait, oh my goddess, did you guys actually–”

In perfect time, Dimitri and Felix dashed past their befuddled dormmate and straight into their shared room, properly closing the thick door behind them. They heard Sylvain’s muffled complaints through the door, but tried their hardest not to listen.

Felix sat on the edge of his bed, eyes fixed on the wall. On the other side of the room, Dimitri nervously paced back and forth. They hadn’t said more than a couple words to each other after Dimitri had caught Felix, but everything still seemed absolutely apparent. Painfully so, even. As clear as it all was to Felix, though, Dimitri’s roundabout way of finally addressing it caught him more off guard than anything he could’ve imagined.

“If… and I do mean _if_ , you also felt that,” Dimitri finally started, in a tone of voice Felix had never heard before, “would… it be presumptuous to ask if I could, perhaps… push our beds together?”

Felix wanted nothing more than to fling the door open and run out of the room – out of the dorm – out of the city, and never return to face this embarrassing, completely earnest man he loved ever again. Of course, he knew that the moment he opened that door, Sylvain – of all people – would be waiting right outside. He couldn’t run away from this.

“...Just do it, then.”

Felix did his absolute best not to look at or listen to Dimitri’s reaction, or even imagine the sickening radiance of his face lighting up at Felix’s reply. There was only so much he could bear in a single morning. Instead, he went for the first distraction that came to mind.

“I’ll… go put the kettle on,” Felix said over the sound of Dimitri’s bed being slowly pushed across the floor. “...Chamomile as always?”


End file.
